Battle Mage Secrets Weekly Challenge! Earthquake!

[Source]

Hi everyone! It's time for the weekly Battle Mage Secrets challenge and the challenge this week is the Close Range Ruleset.

About the Ruleset

Earthquake

The Earthquake ruleset states that "Non-flying Monsters take 2 Melee damage at the end of each round". This can be reduced to 1 damage if the Monster has the Shield ability. You can also snare the opponent to remove the Flying ability.

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Battle Ruleset(s)

Details of my battle with this ruleset is as follows.

Blood and Sunder: All Monsters gain Corrosive Ward
Earthquake: Non-flying Monsters take 2 Melee damage at the end of each round
Mana Cap: 34
Available Splinters: Life, Death and Dragon
Format: Modern

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Cards & Line Up

The Summoner vs

Summoner: Thaddius Brood - This decreases the Magic attack and health of the opponent's deck by 1.

The Line Up

Position 1	Position 2	Position 3	Position 4	Position 5	Position 6

vs

Position 1	Position 2	Position 3	Position 4	Position 5	Position 6

[Card image source]

Position	Name	Description
1	Corpse Fiend	This placed here because it's 0 mana cost and has no Flying ability, which means it'll die off if placed in some other position. So it's placed in the first position as a sacrifice.
2	Ahna-Chei Botanist	It has the Return Fire ability, which will hopefully reflect some damage should the opponent use ranged monsters.
3	Will-o-wisp	It is here for its Flying ability, and has high health. It's excellent here as the main tank.
4	Skok Duskblight	It has the Weapon Training ability, and I placed it in between Will-o-wisp and Riftwing to allow them to benefit from 2 added Magic attack.
5	Riftwing	It has the Flying, Scavenger and Backfire ability, which is great here as its health will grow and doesn't take damage from the ruleset.
6	Usut	It has the Flying and Bloodlust ability, which is handy in this ruleset. It's also placed behind Riftwing so that it will last a lot longer.

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Strategy

The ruleset here meant that (1) Melee Monsters will have their shields slowly destroyed after being attacked, (2) Non-flying monsters will take 2 damage each round.

I opted to use the Death Splinter has I have the most flying monsters with a good amount of health. I think the higher health is handy even though they don't take damage from the Earthquake ruleset, as it helps against damage from the opponent. I placed Skok Duskblight between Will-o-wisp and Riftwing to give them 2 magic attack each, allow them to attack even though they are non-attacking monsters.

The opponent opted to use Franz Ruffmane as his summoner. This gives an extra shield to all the monsters in his deck, which helps non-flying monsters last an extra round. Luckily for me, these monsters have lower health, which allows me to take them out faster than the opponent can take out mine. As such, it was a fairly easy win for me.

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Thoughts on the Earthquake Ruleset

The Earthquake ruleset gives non-flying monsters a significant disadvantage. The general strategy is to use as many flying monsters in the deck as possible. This can be used in conjuction with Snare if possible so that the opponent's flying monsters become non-flying ones. Using abilities like Tank Heal, Heal and Triage can also help to improve the chance of winning in this ruleset.

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Battle

Watch the battle here